National Museum of Australia: History of the World in 100 Objects

Last week the geek in me was let out big time. I haven’t looked forward to an exhibit so much since the National Library had the ‘Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries’ exhibit (oh, back in 2002). The cause for this girl getting her geek on was the Instameet for the National Museum of Australia’s exhibit ‘The History of the World in 100 Objects’ which is currently on loan from the British Museum.

Shepenmehyt’s Coffin26th Dynasty, about 600 CEQurna, Thebes, Egypt

Dr Matthew Trinca, Director of the National Museum of Australia

Director of the National Museum of Australia, Dr Mathew Trinca officially opened the night, informing us that this exhibit encompassed more than 2 million years of history and that it was the story of human beings on the planet. He asked us to look for the connections and distinctions between the exhibits. He compared walking through this exhibit to the journey you take when you read great literature – that while they take us into the lives of others, these objects would give us the opportunity to connect with them, even though their times and cultures are so different from our own.

Dr Michael Pickering, Senior Curator at the National Museum of Australia

Next we listened to the National Museum of Australia’s Senior Curator Dr Michael Pickering. He highlighted how the collection was not only displayed chronologically, but also grouped according to themes, such as ‘Ritual and Belief’ and ‘Innovation and Adaptation’. He set us a challenge – to find the object that we most connected with, and to ask ourselves, “How does this relate to me?” so that history would become relevant to us. He laughed and told us that his favourite object was the Lewis Chessmen, partly because, like the chess pieces, he liked to dress up as a Viking and go into battle in his spare time. In speaking to him later, he also told me that he loved how these chess pieces were representative of so much more than chess, that in its simplest chess could be called a pre-cursor to modern day games. All rely on strategy and the careful consideration of the greater consequences of your moves, if you were to win the game overall. He also informed us that the Director’s favourite object was the Head of Augustus, a controller of a vast empire – and chuckled and said he’d leave us to draw our own conclusions about what that said about Dr Trinca!

“All humans, since our earliest ancestors, have relied on the things they made to live; objects are a universal human necessity. By bringing together the objects in this catalogue, what becomes clear is that they often reveal many other shared human concerns. Some reveal the human desire for knowledge… others expose our most solemn preoccupations; our attempts to understand the divine, to negotiate death, and our constant entanglement with warfare and conflict.” – A History of the World in 100 Object from the British Museum catalogue, NMA

We were then left to our own devices, to wander around the exhibit and take in the objects in our own time. One hour was no where near enough! Before we knew it, our private tour had come to an end. I don’t think I even made it through 50 objects! However, I did manage to capture some of my favourites.

Object 21: Statue of Ramesses IIGranite, about 1280 BCETemple of Khnum, Elephantine, EgyptRamesses II was Pharaoh and “an extremely successful ruler, presiding over a golden age of prosperity and imperial power.”

A close up Object 29: Carving from the Great Stupa of AmaravatiLimestone, 200 – 240 CEAmaravati, Andhra, Pradesh, IndiaAmaravati was one of the most important Buddhist sites in ancient India.

Object(s) 53: Moche Warrior PotCeramic, 100 – 700 CEPeruMoche people had no contact with Europe or Asia and they developed a distinct and captivating artistic tradition… Some of the pots depict particularly violent scenes.

Object 64: The Lewis ChessmenWalrus Ivory, about 1150 – 1175 CEFound on the Isle of Lewis, probably made in NorwayAs the game (chess) moved across the world the pieces change. Indian sets feature war elephants, while Islamic sets have abstract pieces and a male advisor to the king called a ‘vizier’. The game was modified again in Christian Europe through the addition of queens and bishops to the board.

Object 67: Chinese Blue-and-White DishGlazed Porcelain, 1330 – 1350 CEJingdezen (Jiangxi Province), ChinaBlue and white porcelain is one of the most successful luxury products in the world… the blue cobalt used in pieces like this dish was probably imported from Iran, In Chinese it was later known as huihui qing, meaning ‘Muslim blue’.

Object 70: Hebrew AstrolabeBrass, 1345 – 1355 CEProbably SpainThe astrolabe was the most advanced technology it the time – a scientific instrument that could be used to navigate, make mathematical calculations, work out horoscopes and establish the time.